SOMETIMES good leadership makes all the difference. A good leader can give a group purpose and direction, he can organize efforts to accomplish tasks. He can save lives. A bad leader does not offer direction, inspire trust, and give hope. Because of a lack of good leadership people can die.
Far in the southern regions of the Pacific, Auckland Island sits between New Zealand and Antarctica. The year 1864 saw two shipwrecks there. From one ship the entire crew survived and from the other only a tiny fraction lived to tell the tale. Why the difference?
The Grafton: Captain Thomas Musgrave set sail on the Grafton on a business venture. Ordered to explore Auckland Island for commercial possibilities, specifically seals to hunt and minerals to mine, he found little of either but ended up staying longer than he hoped. A storm blew the Grafton onto the rocks, mortally wounding the ship. The crew stayed on board the stricken vessel as long as they could and salvaged a large cache of supplies before it sank.
Once ashore Musgrave organized the group of five into work parties. They built shelters, hunted for food, even built a forge to make tools out of metal gleaned from the shipwreck. After a year, realizing no one would come for them, they rebuilt the small rowboat they had into a seaworthy vessel. Three of them sailed to New Zealand and were rescued, with Musgrave sailing back to Auckland Island to retrieve the two men left behind. The entire party lived to tell the tale of shipwreck and salvation. Perhaps even more incredible: having been there almost two years, the men never realized that they had company on the island.
The Invercauld: A couple of months after the shipwreck of the Grafton, the Invercauld wrecked on the opposite shore of the same island. The survivors were only 25 miles apart but never ran into each other or even suspected the other’s presence.
When the Invercauld was in danger Captain Dalgarno shouted confusing and contradictory orders. Clearly the ship was lost and it became every man for himself. Sailors fled the disaster and even left one injured man behind to drown. Once ashore several groups split off to look for food and other resources, but finding little, they slowly melted away. One sick man was left on the beach with a caretaker as others looked for food. When the caretaker smelled pork cooking he abandoned his patient and never went back for him. He was later found dead from neglect.
Some sat around the shore near the shipwreck, others pressed inland, but nothing was done to organize the group and improve their situation. Eventually, they came across the abandoned settlement from the Grafton group. Those men had been rescued by then but had left their buildings, tools and other resources behind. It made no difference. A year later, when a ship visited Auckland Island, they found the remains of a man lying near a ruined hut, his leg wrapped due to injury. He must have been the last survivor of the Invercauld, and having lost the means to sustain his life, simply wasted away and starved to death. All told, three crew members were rescued out of the original twenty-five.
Why the difference? Both groups had advantages. The Grafton group salvaged a great deal of material from their stricken ship, including a gun to shoot birds and wild pigs. But the Invercauld group was larger, so more work could be accomplished. The wreckage of their ship was such that they could have recovered far more than they did but no one tried. During their stay they stumbled on a ready-made village, that of the Grafton group, but it made no difference to the outcome. The Grafton crew certainly did not find a well-built village complete with tools at their disposal.
The difference was leadership. Musgrave made it clear that the entire party would survive. Captain Dalgarno of the Invercauld did little to organize the group. An attitude of “every man for himself” developed immediately and dominated as they all died off. There are striking parallels between what happened on Auckland Island and last week’s tale of Lord of the Flies and the Tonga group.
Dr. BC Cook taught history for 30 years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.
